Lessons learnt in the Garden of Eden

Work on my screen involved taking one hell of a chance in terms of techniques and materials. Fortunately the unknown elements worked to my advantage. The plywood had a slightly raised grain which gave texture, the vinyl paint had a slight sheen which gave life, and my random collection soft pastels from thirty years ago gave me the colour effects I was after. My only concern was the clear matt spray varnish that I used to finally fix the work. I did a test panel beforehand and that worked well. However, on the actual panels pressure from the spray tended to blow away some of the pigment and slightly reduced the depth of colour. But in general I would say 99% successful.

Below are the panels in detail.

Naked without shame

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Genesis II, Verse 25)

Likewise, my Eve is naked without shame. In my Caribbean Garden of Eden fig leaves are superfluous; there are no forbidden fruits, no serpents and no Adam to distract Eve's reverie. 

Completed panels 1, 2, 3 & 4 of side one of the screen.

Below are the panels in detail: Passion Fruit, Mango, Guava and Orange.

Once again I thank Verlena, my Dominican model and muse, for inspiring my work. When Verlena modelled for a sculpture of her standing figure three years ago we never foresaw that one day the same relaxed pose would depict Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Decorative Arts

James McNeill's (1843-1903) interior design masterpiece The Peacock Room falls under the category of Decorative Arts, as does the work of hundreds of artists from the past. In a more humble way the designs for my screen follow suit. The pictures below show work in progress on Screen 1 and Screen 2.

Eve tempted by Passion Fruit

Eve tempted by Mangoes

The work of the potter, being both beautiful and functional, also falls under the category of Decorative Arts. My son Karl, alienated from me at the age of three by way of divorce, is such a one. But court orders take no account of genes. Now in his thirties he has established himself as self-taught studio potter. Below is an example of his work and a link to a recent interview.

I'm trying to decide

I have completed the figures on one side of my screen. I am now trying to decide if I should bring this side to completion before turning it around to work on the reverse side. Pastel drawings are vulnerable until they are fixed and I can't fix them until they are finished. Like a coin, I cannot view and work on both sides of the screen at once.

Initially, I had in mind nothing more than trailing vines for the surround of each panel. But now my idea of Eve wandering through a Caribbean Garden of Eden has taken hold. Our fruits are more exotic than apples from temperate regions. Off the top of my head I can list at least twenty fruits that grow in abundance on my island; more than enough to decorate my panels twice over.  

It would take a strong-willed Eve to resist the temptation of sampling the Passion Fruit that grows within a stone's throw of my studio. 

The subtlety that I'm after

 

I am making progress on the screen I featured a few posts ago. I foresee that the difficulty will be keeping harmony on all eight panels. In progressing from panel 1 to panel 2 my method of applying pastel as already changed. I may have to wipe out my first attempts to achieve the subtlety that I'm after. Foliage in the form of exotic vines will balance the compositions and create a tempting Garden of Eden for my Eve to wander through.

The picture below shows work in progress on panel 2.

My children as models

The opening photograph is of my children, Tania, Tristan and Trina. It dates from when we first came to Dominica sixteen years ago. A couple of years early they had all been subjects for my sculptures. 

First Tania

Then Trina

And finally, Tristan

At about the same time Tania and Trina also modelled for my sculpture The Dancing Girls. The ceramic flowers were made for the unveiling by school children that had followed the project on my website. That was in the days before blogs. The bronze cast stands in the gardens of the Allen Gallery in Hampshire, UK.

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching...

 

The artist as a young man sixty years ago. 

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,

They have soaked you in convention through and through;

They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching - 

But can't you hear the wild? - it's calling you.

(From "The Call of the Wild" by Robert Service 1874-1958)

The young man in the photograph is me at the age of eighteen. I look contented enough, but looks can be deceptive. Within me a rebellion was brewing. Five years later I gave up a secure job in engineering design, converted a canal barge into a studio and with my wife and two year old daughter, set sail for the French canals. It was on the pavements of France that I declared myself as an artist. 

These beginning's are relevant to questions posed by my daughter Trina and my good friend Verlena. Trina is working in computer programming and Verlena is into her second year at university. Both are creatively inclined and frustrated. They asked: "How ever did you do it." and "Was it easier in those days than it would be now.".  

I did it by grabbing chances, living on a shoe string and adapting my skills to anything that came my way. Importantly, I had the good fortune of a wife who was happy to share my dream regardless of the hardships involved. 

To step out of the normal run of things will never be easy but it is perhaps easier today than what it was for me sixty years ago. I say that because young people now are more conditioned to normality by way of further education. The majority are all after the same thing, thus leaving room for others to find their own space by stepping aside. 

When I left a well paid job in engineering design everyone thought I was mad. Maybe I was, but happy to be so. If there is a God watching over us I believe he takes special care of those who take chances in life. When I live life for all it's worth he never lets me down, but when I try to play safe he puts all kinds of obstacles in my way.

But risk is every present. I have no pension and no security for old age. But no problem. When my work is finished, I will be finished!

Pete Seeger's recording of "Little Boxes" dates from 1963, the very year when I escaped from a life sentence in little boxes. 

The blight of "Little Boxes" has alas reached the Caribbean.

Living above the shop

Like many of the creative artists and craftsmen from the past, I live above the shop. 

I have spent the last two weeks renovating the living room from the ravages of two hurricanes and my numerous offspring. Everything in that space I have designed and made with my own hands, from the walls to the furniture, and the same goes for the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom. The settee and chairs date back to twenty-five years ago. They were the first of my Caribbean Furniture Designs. The cushion covers date back to last week.

Let this be a lesson for those who think art is all about painting pictures and living in squalor. To survive an artist has to be skilled in all things creative. And the space within which we live is creatively the most important of all.  

Behind the screen

The opening picture shows the sketches I make from all angles in readiness for a sculpture of a standing figure. The finished sculpture of my model Verlena is shown below.

             

What I now have in mind is to use those eight different views to decorate a screen that has been languishing in my workshop for over twenty years. I originally made the screen in the misguided belief that my models might need it to discretely change behind. Front and back the screen has eight 15" x 55" panels, one for each view. Whereas my sculpture was quarter life-size, my screen decorations will be almost life-size. 

In order to retain a rapid sketch effect I'm tempted to try working in pastel, fixed with a spray varnish. In future posts I'll show you the work in progress. 

The screen standing in my workshop.

Verlena

All that is missing is my model. Verlena is now overseas at university. 

Sticking my neck out

In an earlier post I mentioned that our voyage through the Bahamas in 1976 met all the requirements of sailing and painting on the preverbal shoe string. By the time we had reached Green Turtle Cay we were penniless. In desperation I tried my luck with a collection of my sketches at the hotel above the anchorage. My confidence was at a low ebb when I reached the entrance. I was about to turn back when I noticed a sign saying, "A turtle only makes progress by sticking its neck out". 

As luck would have it, one of the guests remembered my work from the BVI and by sticking my neck out I sold four paintings. Confidence restored! 

Today's painting dates from those early days. The scene was a short deserted walk away from my studio which was nothing more than a shack on the shore of an idyllic cove. My boat was anchored in the crystal-clear waters of the reef-fringed cove with a handful of others. The cove is now a crowded marina surrounded by hotels and restaurants and the short walk now leads to the private grounds of palatial residences. My paradise was alas, ripe for development.

We are betrayed by what we love.

"The Painter's Workshop" Watercolour by Jean Jansen (1920-2013)

The act of painting reveals who we are. We are betrayed by what we love. (Jean Jansem)

I might add that an artist is also betrayed by the work of those he admires. Jean Jansem's oeuvre, materials and technique come close to my own attempts to master a similar way of recording what I love. 

Hovhannes Semerdjian, also known as Jean Jansem, was a French/Armenian painter of international renown. He was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2003 and the President of Armenia awarded him a Medal of Honour for his reinforcement of Armenian/French cultural ties.

Painting by Jean Jansen

My School Report

In 1953, the year of my report card, England was still recovering from World War II and my school was located in the impoverished North of England. Although I came next to the bottom in the class, the fact that I am with you today as a painter and sculptor is thanks to Miss Atack, my primary school teacher. She was the first to recognize my flair for art. 

The fact that I was eventually able to excel in all subjects, is thanks to Miss Shepard, my remarkable "sink" secondary modern school headmistress. She diagnosed dyslexia before the word came into common usage. I was no longer perceived as dumb but different – just as Leonardo da Vinci, Auguste Rodin, Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein were dyslexic and different.

Civilizations are built on creativity and so too is the well-being of society. Twenty years ago a mixed race school on the outskirts of London had all the usual problems of low grades, bullying, truancy and antisocial behaviour.  Then there came on the scene a headmistress who might have been Miss Atack and Miss Shepard reincarnated. With amazing effect she placed art, drama and music at the core of the school’s agenda with amazing effect. It was not long before the school’s steel band played at the Royal Festival Hall and her pupils performed in the “Merchant of Venice” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Her strategy for embracing the arts had a marked effect on academic achievement. Results for English, mathematics, science and history were above the national average. School inspectors cited pupil confidence, high moral, pride of achievement and exemplary behaviour.

I have witnessed a similar success story here in the Caribbean. In the 1980’s two music teachers from Canada – a husband and wife team – came down to the British Virgin Islands and started a school orchestra from scratch. Students had to save up to buy their own instruments and the orchestra’s repertoire ranged from classics to jazz. The village baker’s son, a boy of enormous girth and by no means academically inclined, became a maestro on the tuba. At the end of the couple’s two year contract, the orchestra made a tour of cities in the United States and received standing ovations.

Caribbean Style

A few days ago my post titled One Skill Leads to Another showed work in progress on a rocking chair. Today's picture shows the end result. The chair is part of a collection Caribbean furniture that I've been working on over the years. The collection includes: chairs, tables, stools, planter's chairs, cabinets, a chaise longue and swing banquette. Each piece is unique in design and decoration. 

A book titled Caribbean Style, first published in 1985, contains a superb photographic collection of Caribbean architecture, interiors and furniture. 

Decoration Detail

While I was working on the chair, Hoagy Carmichael's "Old Rockin' Chair" was running around in my mind. Here is Armstrong and Jack Teagarden's version of the 1929 jazz classic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOxx1-LIAWA

In the beginning

 

A Fallen Tree Truck by Roger Burnett aged two and a half.

The forthcoming retrospective collection that I mentioned some weeks ago should really begin with the original of the work of art that illustrates today's post. It dates from 1945 and was drawn in crayon, along with hundreds of other sketches, on the blank pages of an old invoice book that my father had rescued from the garbage where he worked. When I had filled every page the book was again put in the garbage (dustbin in English). In those days parents didn't pin their offspring's creations on the wall. Although the originals are long gone I have a vivid recollection of many of them and the above reproduction is one I liked the best. 

I saw this and thought of you

Rick Slabbinek (1914-1991) Belgian Painter

A link to the opening painting and a rare copy of Noel Coward's Collected Sketches and Lyrics were passed onto me with the message: I saw this and thought of you! Both relate the censorship of the nude in all art forms.

Noel Coward's book had weathered earlier hurricanes before it came into my possession via a good friend and the secondhand book stall in the early years of Dominica's Literary Festival. It has since survived Hurricane Maria, the worst hurricane in the history of the Caribbean. Hence it's sorry appearance.

It was published in the 1930's but this quote foreshadows today's social media's restrictive community guidelines. 

OFFICAL. Excuse me, this little lad must have a top to 'is bathing dress.  MRS. F. Why - what for?   OFFICIAL. Corporation's rules.   MRS. F. Lot of nonsense - the child's under age.    OFFICIAL. Can't help that madam. The Corporation's very strict about indecent exposure.    MRS. F. Well, it's coming to something if a child of ten can't enjoy a state of nature without giving a lot of old ladies ideas.  OFFICIAL. England don't 'old with states of nature.

One skill leads to another

Earlier this month l mentioned that I know of nothing more therapeutic than working with hand tools at my carpenter's bench. The results of that therapy is the rocking chair that illustrates today's post. 

The chair is still a work in progress but days of breathing shaving scented air cleared my mind to ponder on what it takes to be an artist. I am not sure how prospective students are judge for entry to an art school or college, but if it was up me I would place eye-to-hand skill high on the scale of requirements.

The skill I use as a sculptor relates to the skill I use as an engineer which in turn relates to the skill I use as a carpenter, etc. etc. One skill leads to another and all of them enable an artist to survive. 

A wood shaving straight from the plane is in itself a work of art.

Mood Indigo

 

It takes four years in art school and a MA degree in art to create the colour subtleties and finely balanced composition of today's painting....or does it!  

I have titled the painting Mood Indigo. It was painted this afternoon by my eighteen month old grandson in four minutes. 

Research has shown that we are born with 98% the creative potential of genius. By the time the majority of students leave college it has been reduced to less than 2%.

Where have we gone wrong!

While you mull over that one, here's Ella Fitzgerald's 1957 recording of Mood Indigo from her Duke Ellington Song Book LP. Incidentally, I bought the LP the year it was released with my first week's wage. You might also add this recording by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra.

Smart Art :(

River Esk, Whitby. An original "painting" by Alan Burnett 

I am taking the content of this post directly from my brother's blog News from Nowhere. I quote:

This is my entry for the 2021 season of Sky TV's Landscape Artist Of The Year.  Watching the show on a regular basis I have become intrigued at how the artists use their smartphones to compose and record a scene, which they then go on to paint. Once painted they use the same smart phones to photograph the painting to submit it for consideration by the program. My approach is slightly different: I cut out the middle man. The smart phone records the scene, paints the picture and then submits it. Saves time all around.

My brother's satirical post exactly corresponds to my own views on the cowardly copyists who attempt to pass as "artists". The painter J M W Turner (1775-1851) must be turning in his grave. To capture the effects he needed for his painting Snow Storm: Steamboat off the Harbour's Mouth he instructed the the sailors to lash him to the mast so he could observe it.

Christ on the Cross

A few days ago I had a request from the Catholic Church for a six foot sculpture of Christ on the Cross. I received a similar request last year. My response to both was: thanks but no thanks. In both cases the proposed fee would not have covered a fraction of the material costs, let alone the hundreds of hours of work involved. Furthermore, my image of the most cruel form of death ever devised by man would not be the idyllic vision that the commissioners had in mind.

Having said that, I have always been tempted to portray Christ on the Cross on my own terms. The opening sketch was made years ago with that in mind. I do not have a name to which I can attribute the sculpture shown below. Like many images I find on the internet, the source was not given. What I can say is, I wish I'd done that!

UPDATE: !5th March 2021

Thanks to Goggle Image Search, I now do have a name. The image below is of a bronze maquette by Jacquire Binns for a life-size sculpture for St. Peter's Church, Plymouth, UK.

"Crucifixion" by Jacquie Binns

As often happens, both with my own work and that of others, I find the Jacquie Binns's maquette to be more dramatic that the final sculpture.

Rescued in the nick of time

Throughout my fifty years in the Caribbean I have lost more paintings by way of termites than by hurricanes. The same is true of my collection of books and rare jazz LPs. As I mentioned in a post years ago: termites have taste!

Today, as I was searching through my drawing cabinet, I found that the troublesome little creatures were at it again. Luckily I discovered their attack in the nick of time and rescued scores of paintings. These two pastels dating from the 1990's are amongst those I managed to save.  

#frofriday

I am proud that the students at one of my island's secondary schools choose natural hair styles as their theme for Black History Month. Their action proclaims pride of identity for the race from which they were born and fulfills Marcus Garvey's plea: "Take the kinks out of your mind, not your hair".

All to often those of African decent mimic foreign concepts of beauty, especially in terms of disguising their natural appearance: they bleach their skin, straighten their hair and modify their facial features. Two contestants at last year's Carnival Queen Contest wore wigs!

The Caribbean male fares no better. In recent times the fashion has been to shave every inch of hair from their heads. Sir Kenneth Dwight Vincent Venner (1946-2016) past Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank was a refreshing exception. 

Somebody’s boring me; I think it’s me.

The title of today's post is a quote from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) and the 30" handcart wheel is the kind of thing I set my hands and mind to for therapy when I my paintings, sculptures and fashion designs begin to bore me.

I know of nothing more therapeutic than working with hand tools at my carpenter's bench. In comparison my other forms of creative endevour come a poor second.

I believe it was George Orwell who, when giving a talk at a Women's Institute a member of the audience ventured to say, "How nice it must be to be able to write". 

He responded: "Madam, writing is the worst punishment I can possibly devise for myself".